Big wooden boat project [Splashed Sept 2017]

[mickyryan]

is varnish better to use on interior wood then polyurethane? and does your boat have that old boat smell ? god I miss that I don't know if it was linseed oil or what that used to make wooden boats smell so good maybe it was linseed oil and a hint of old bad gas lol

 

[Ned L]

How close to launching it are you?

I don't have a date yet, but close. ........... When others ask me I say "May 15th" , ......... I sort of missed that target, but with the size of this project, and the time I wasn't able to put in this spring I'm still doing pretty well.

As of now, she has about 7" of water in her bilge up forward and almost nothing dripping out, .... I'm pretty pleased with that.

 

[Ned L]

is varnish better to use on interior wood then polyurethane? and does your boat have that old boat smell ? god I miss that I don't know if it was linseed oil or what that used to make wooden boats smell so good maybe it was linseed oil and a hint of old bad gas lol

Thank you for the complement. Yep, she has that 'wooden boat smell', I have to admit that I am quite partial to that (sorry guys, but it beats that 'polyester' smell any day! )

I prefer to use single part enamel paints and traditional 'spar varnishes' to two part epoxy paints and polyurethane varnishes. I recognize they do not provide as hard a finish, but they are much easier to sand, 'feather' in scratches and scrapes, do the annual maintenance on. Also, when polyurethanes get moisture under them they tend to peal up like a sheet of Saran wrap.

 

[Ned L]

I have finally moved to some of the last things that HAVE to be done before tossing her in the water. The biggest job is prepping and painting the hull. Last weekend I got the port side all sanded and primed. Hopefully this weekend I will get the starboard side taken care of (it is in better shape, it has not been baking in the sun for the past two years.)

Here she is ready for primer.

There is actually a boat under there!

 

[Ned L]

I did find there were some plank issues I had to deal with on the port side toward the transom. As the past two years passed there were some areas along the rivet line where the paint really start lifting, and then some epoxy filler started lifting. There was definitely something going on here. What I found was that decades ago there must have been some cracks that started along the rivet line in the gains of the planks and over the years filler and epoxy was repeatedly to fill the crack. The problem was that the "filler" material expands and contracts differently than that wood, and kept tearing out a bit of wood until it got to today with sizable amounts of various filler types (bondo, epoxy, filler putty, etc).
(In lapstrake construction, the overlapping areas of the planks toward the ends, where the 'lap' becomes flush is called a "gain". These can be made with either a progressive shiplap or a progressive bevel.)
I pulled out all that ?stuff? out, cleaned the damaged areas out into clean ?V??s, and epoxied in fresh pieces of Jersey white cedar. These were then planed and sanded down flush. These repairs should last as long as needed, and will not have issues with different expansion and contraction rates (thermal and moisture content related).

Here everything was cleaned out and the new little wedges of cedar glued in place (with temporary little 'clamp blocks' holding them).

Here is a close up of what is going on

Here the epoxy is dry and the temporary 'clamp block' removed.

Here it is all ready for planning off of the excess cedar and sanding smooth. The spaces between the little blocks are where the rivet heads are, and are filled with a regular filler material (as the thousands of others are).

It surrounding area looks like crap, but is actually all fair and smooth.

 

[mickyryan]

agggh the pics aren't showing!!

 

[Ned L]

Hmmmm,.... I'll have to get that figured out. Unfortunately my work 'upgraded' my laptop to Windows 10, and now it doesn't recognize a flash drive in the USB port, a real pain. Short of it is I tried attaching from "Dropbox" instead of "Shutterfly" like the rest of the pictures. I'll have to get them over to Shutterfly and re-link them. Sorry about that.

 

[mickyryan]

np I just was forced to upgrade the missus at office and now I'm using team viewer to help her figure out the stupid things they changed like search and other tools , cant figure out why they cant leave well enough alone.!

 

[gm280]

np I just was forced to upgrade the missus at office and now I'm using team viewer to help her figure out the stupid things they changed like search and other tools , cant figure out why they cant leave well enough alone.!

mickyryan, don't you know by now that changing things around and renaming other things is the illusion of progress? ound:

Seem that is how my old office worked anyways. :facepalm:

 

[Ned L]

Yep,.... Just because they can doesn't mean they should.

 

[Woodonglass]

Hmmmm,.... I'll have to get that figured out. Unfortunately my work 'upgraded' my laptop to Windows 10, and now it doesn't recognize a flash drive in the USB port, a real pain. Short of it is I tried attaching from "Dropbox" instead of "Shutterfly" like the rest of the pictures. I'll have to get them over to Shutterfly and re-link them. Sorry about that.

USBOblivion is a Free Download and it WILL fix your problem.

 

[mickyryan]

amen to that ned!

 

[Ned L]

USBOblivion is a Free Download and it WILL fix your problem.

Thank you WOG! .... In fortunately, being a "work computer" I really can't do anything to it myself.

 

[mickyryan]

smash it with a brick then spill resin and wipe it up with glass and oops return it sealed could fair it and make it even prettier and snicker as the it guys try to figure out how to get into it

 

[Ned L]

Hmmm, ..... I think Craig (our IT guy) might get a bit suspicious, he knows me to well for that. --- I like the idea though!

 

[Ned L]

We'll try this again, this time linking back to Shutterfly so that the pics show up for everyone (hopefully).



I have finally moved to some of the last things that HAVE to be done before tossing her in the water. The biggest job is prepping and painting the hull. Last weekend I got the port side all sanded and primed. Hopefully this weekend I will get the starboard side taken care of (it is in better shape, it has not been baking in the sun for the past two years.)

 

[Ned L]

I did find there were some plank issues I had to deal with on the port side toward the transom. As the past two years passed there were some areas along the rivet line where the paint really start lifting, and then some epoxy filler started lifting. There was definitely something going on here. What I found was that decades ago there must have been some cracks that started along the rivet line in the gains of the planks and over the years filler and epoxy was repeatedly to fill the crack. The problem was that the "filler" material expands and contracts differently than that wood, and kept tearing out a bit of wood until it got to today with sizable amounts of various filler types (bondo, epoxy, filler putty, etc).
(In lapstrake construction, the overlapping areas of the planks toward the ends, where the 'lap' becomes flush is called a "gain". These can be made with either a progressive shiplap or a progressive bevel.)
I pulled out all that ?stuff? out, cleaned the damaged areas out into clean ?V??s, and epoxied in fresh pieces of Jersey white cedar. These were then planed and sanded down flush. These repairs should last as long as needed, and will not have issues with different expansion and contraction rates (thermal and moisture content related).

Here everything was cleaned out and the new little wedges of cedar glued in place (with temporary little 'clamp blocks' holding them).

Here is a close up of what is going on

Here the epoxy is dry and the temporary 'clamp block' removed.

Here it is all ready for planning off of the excess cedar and sanding smooth. The spaces between the little blocks are where the rivet heads are, and are filled with a regular filler material (as the thousands of others are).

The surrounding area looks like crap, but is actually all fair and smooth.



Hopefully this brings things back up to speed so the pics are visible to everyone.

 

[Ned L]

This past weekend I got the starboard side pretty well prepped and a first coat of finish paint going on the port side. For a couple of reasons I really can't be to concerned about what it looks like for the first season back in the water. The cedar planking will expand noticeably when the boat goes back in the water (even above the waterline), so after a couple of weeks in the water all the rivet heads will start to pucker in and show as depressions. I have also started to think the topsides are getting 'paint sick', meaning there are too many coats of paint, and too many different kinds of paint. When it gets to this point it really isn't possible to end up with a really nice smooth fair surface that will last. The only solution to this is to strip all the paint and take her back to bare wood, ...... a periodic necessity with wooden boats, and something I will be doing in the next couple of years. For now however, she won't be to bad looking.

 

[mickyryan]

Hey she look good from 5 ft you are golden i like a boat that looks aged it makes you wonder what shes been through to get here and the scars she shows for it

 

[Ned L]

yep, ......... And a "new looking", "show quality" boat was never my intention. when I am done, she will probably be 90+% of the way there, but all I am interested in is for her to be a nice clean good looking 'user boat'. --- That I think she will be.